Hackers Target BPAS Abortion Provider

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) is one of the leading abortion providers in the country, and it has recently come under fire from "pro-life" hacker activists.

The hacking attacks began a while back, and last month, a man in his late twenties from the West Midlands, James Jeffery, was jailed for stealing data pertaining to 10,000 women - who had sought advice on abortion from BPAS.

In the five weeks after his arrest, no less than 2,500 attempts have been made to hack into the BPAS systems, with the attacks originating from around the globe: particularly Russia and America. Indeed, pro-life campaigners in the US were responsible for almost half of the hacking activity.

BPAS told the BBC that these further intrusion attempts were unsuccessful, and no more data was compromised.

James Jeffery was jailed for two years and eight months, and said he'd hacked the site because two women he knew had abortions, and apparently he didn't agree with their choice. He had intended to publish the data he had stripped from the BPAS on-line servers, but didn't go through with doing so in the end.

BPAS was founded in 1968, just after the Abortion Act was passed in the UK. It has some 40 centres across the UK, where it provides counselling as well as treatment.